United Kingdom records seven fatalities after AstraZeneca jab
- by Carmen Reese
- in Science
- — Apr 3, 2021
As of March 24, there were 22 cases of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis and another eight cases of thrombosis with low platelets.
The British health regulator on Saturday said seven people died from rare blood clots after having the AstraZeneca vaccine, but added that the benefits of the jab outweigh the risks.
Concerns over the AstraZeneca vaccine prompted some countries including Canada, France, Germany and the Netherlands to restrict its use to older people.
The European Medicines Agency is expected to update its recommendation on this issue on April 7. It did not disclose any information about their ages or health conditions.
"In real terms - if there is a risk [of blood clots from the vaccine] - it is miniscule by comparison to the risk of Covid".
The Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said on Thursday that the risk associated with this type of blood clot is "very small" and that the public should continue to take up the vaccine when offered it. The European Union's medicines regulator has also recommended that countries continue to use the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Scientists said Friday that the overall risk of the particular clotting events that have drawn concern was extremely low: roughly one case in 600,000 recipients of the AstraZeneca vaccine in Britain. "We have to be able to trust the vaccines", Merkel said.
Responding to the data, a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) said that taking up the vaccine was "by far the safest choice" at minimising risk of serious illness or death.
Professor Adam Finn, from the University of Bristol, said: "The report states that these cases are being very carefully investigated to better understand whether or not they may have any causal relationship with vaccination".
AstraZeneca said last month following United States efficiency trials that its vaccine is 79 percent effective at preventing the disease and does not increase the risk of blood clots. And the Netherlands said Friday that it had temporarily suspended use of the vaccine in people under 60 after the death of a woman there who had been given the shot.
More than 31 million people have received a first coronavirus vaccination dose in Britain, which is using both the AstraZeneca vaccine and the BioNTech-Pfizer version. He added that doctors and people who had received the AstraZeneca vaccine should be on the lookout for symptoms of the clotting events, like severe headaches or signs of a stroke. People can not choose which one they get. It also ordered 30 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine the same year.
